Tom Yum

FBI disrupts New York transportation plot By PAT MILTON, Associated Press Writer


1 hour, 34 minutes ago



NEW YORK - Authorities disrupted a terrorist plot to attack the train tunnels beneath the Hudson River that carry thousands of commuters between New York and New Jersey every day, the FBI announced Friday.

Law enforcement officials said the plot involved at least eight people overseas, including an alleged al-Qaida operative arrested in Lebanon who had sworn allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

"This is a plot that involved martyrdom and explosives and certain of the tubes that connect Jersey and lower Manhattan," FBI Assistant Director Mark J. Mershon said. He said the plot to blow up the PATH commuter train tunnels this fall was the "real deal."

"We believe we intercepted this group early in their plotting and, in fact, the plan has largely been disrupted," Mershon said.

Initial reports said the terrorists wanted to attack the Holland Tunnel. But Mershon said the group specifically mentioned only the PATH tunnels beneath the Hudson.

A U.S. law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the extremists discussed wanting to inflict damage on the U.S. economy and believed that by bombing the train tunnels, they could unleash a flood on New York's financial district.

Officials said the FBI had been monitoring the plot's development in Internet chat rooms for several months and cited the arrest of the Lebanese suspect as a significant break in the investigation.

"The plotting for this attack had matured to a point where it appeared that the individuals were about to move forward," Mershon said. "They were about to go to a phase where they would attempt to surveil targets, establish a regimen of attack and acquire the resources necessary to effectuate the attacks.

"At that point it's entirely appropriate to take it down."

New York's transportation system has emerged as a potential terrorist target in several recent cases. A June book by journalist Ron Suskind highlighted a reported plot by al-Qaida terrorists to kill thousands of New Yorkers by spreading cyanide gas in the subway. In May, a man was convicted of plotting to blow up a subway station.

In the latest case, a federal official said FBI agents determined that tunnels were possibly being targeted after investigators pieced together code words from Internet conversations.

Mershon said the case has been under investigation for almost a year. He confirmed the alleged Lebanon operative's identity as Assem Hammoud.

Lebanese police issued a statement Friday saying that the operative belonged to "an extremist group that was in the process of preparing to carry out a major terrorist act in the United States" later this year.

He was tracked through Internet communications "related to the planning of a major terror act in the metro tunnels of New York under the Hudson River," the statement said.

A Lebanese security official said police arrested Hammoud on April 27 based on information from the FBI. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

The police statement, which referred to Hammoud by his alias Amir Andalousli but noted that his real initials were A.H., said he had been ordered to live a life of fun and indulgence in Lebanon to hide his Islamic militancy. He was instructed not to show any religious tendencies while in the country.

Hammoud told investigators he was acting "on a religious order from bin Laden and said 'I am proud to carry out his orders'," another Lebanese security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

One U.S. official called the plot "largely aspirational" and described the Internet conversations as mostly extremists discussing and conceptualizing the plot. The official said no money had been transferred, nor had other similar operational steps been taken.

"It was never a concern that this would actually be executed," Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said Friday. "We were, as I say, all over this."

Details of the plot emerged on the one-year anniversary of the attacks on the London transportation system that killed 52 people.

"This is one instance where intelligence was on top of its game and discovered the plot when it was just in the talking phase," said Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said Friday that investigators had found no evidence that the Holland Tunnel was part of the plot. The New York Daily News had reported Friday that the plotters wanted to blow up the tunnel, the southernmost link between Manhattan and New Jersey, in the hopes of flooding New York's financial district.

PATH train riders took the news of the plot in stride.

"It bothers us, it scares us, but you gotta keep living, you know?" said Dudley Nosy, 21, a security guard from Brooklyn who regularly takes the train to Jersey City to see his girlfriend. "You can't stay in the house all day long, you gotta do what you gotta do."

__________________
Love it, leave it or fix it.

BoarSpear

I'm glad they caught them, but how dangerous or bright is the terrorist who is planning his attacks on an internet chat room? They caught nutter, I'm so impressed...good thing these guys were stupid....If we keep counting on stupidity its going to be a long decade